F-104 Starfighter.....

[DBII]

F-104 has my vote. Pictures do not do it justice, one has to see it in the air. I was lucky enough to see one flying back in the 80's. It belong to a collector that lived in the Houston area. He kept it at IAH for several months. I saw it one and never saw it again.

An LTC attached to my old unit was a F-104 driver. He told me they trained to fly at max speed toward a bomber formation and launch missles. If they made it through the first pass, they would roll off the top and try to catch the formation for a second pass.

DBII

 

[SoD Stitch]

I like the Crusader too, but I never understood why they had the whole wing section come up to act as a speed brake. It seems they could have picked a better way to slow the plane down.

Was it effective?

I'm guessing there may have been problems or it didn't work as well as planned since there isn't any other plane (that I know of) that uses this method to slow down.

Actually, the original reason for the "tilting" wing wasn't so that it would act as speed brake, but that it would increase the incidence of the wing when landing on carriers, thereby increasing the AoA and decreasing the landing speed. It also allowed the pilot a better view over the nose when landing, as the fuselage would be closer to level during the final approach.

 

[Matt308]

And with respect to the F-8, you gotta love these...

""Safety" Record - a point of perverse pride. Overall accident rate of 46.70 per 100,000 hrs. (For comparison: A-4: 23.36; F-4: 20.17; F-14: 9.32). Many reasons probable, none of which include pilot inadequacy. The VIW wing (or something) made it a strange beast on final; 140 kts+/- approach speeds to a 27C; gremlins; "tiger" attitude, to close for the kill on anything, anyplace, any time, with any weapon available, apparently including the airplane. In an article in the August 2000 issue of Flight Journal, Paul Gilcrist points out that "the
accident statistics of the Crusader in the Fleet was atrocious . . . the Navy bought 1266 Crusaders during those years and at the same time, experienced 1106 major Crusader accidents. In other words, some intrepid aviator or
other crashed virtually every Crusader ever built!"

and...

"First ( only?) to execute 4 point slow roll on take off not get his wings jerked forthwith: 7 May 1958 in F8U-1 BuNo 143814. (Awarded poison oak leaf cluster for displaying extreme stupidity in the face of serious personal peril to wit, ignoring commonly know fact that maneuver would obviously be in full view of black shoe atsugi base skipper who, when he wasn't gleefully reaming perfectly innocent brown shoe folk, spent the balance of his time feet on desk sucking on pipe staring out of office window - I thought he was asleep.)"

and this beauty...

"Most Unique Ground Attack - During the 64 cruise on ranger I was a unarmed photo type with VFP-63. I was launched about 2 am in the dark night with 4 A-4s and a tanker to do photo bomb damage on a truck farm in the middle of the jungle.

The A-4s spent an hour dropping flares looking for the truck farm- while me and the tanker orbited at 20m.. I kept topping off and when the A-4s gave up and left, I had a full load of fuel and 40 million half candle power photo flash flares with 8 sec delay, that I could not bring back to the ship.

We were near route one on the west side of Nam and with a full moon the road stood out like the yellow brick road.. We knew there was a VC protected inter section just to the south. So I said goodbye to the tanker and let down to tree top level straight down the road doing about
mach 1.1... As I approached the inter section I salvoed the whole 40 flares and pulled straight up and got the hell out of there..

To this day I bet there are some VC who are still going around blinking their eyes. It was my only shot in anger !!!. Chuck Anderson"

and last but not least...

"World's Altitude Record for Launching A Paper Airplane -Test vehicle placed in speed brake well, s.b. pumped shut before start. Boards opened at 50,125 feet indicated; 11 August 1966, F-8D BuNo 147069, between Eglin AFB Cecil.

Cleanest Bomb Attack On Soviet Vessel - Med, about May 1967. 13 rolls toilet paper (unused) loaded into speed brake well (I liked that speed brake). Hard right off cat, gear up, opened boards over trawler maneuvering to force carrier to turn. No medal, but no hack either. "

courtesy of Welcome to Cloudnet!

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

You could probably compare the F-104 to the 1968 Hemi Road Runner. If it didn't make go fast, it did not have it.8)

 

[Thorlifter]

If it didn't make go fast, it did not have it.8)

Sorry Aaron, can you elaborate?

 

[Matt308]

No he can't. He's used up his vowels.

 

[JugBR]

 

[Matt308]

Sorry, Jug, I like her too, but for different reasons. She's a flying tank.

 

[Kruska]

F-104?

Sure has my definite vote.

Regards
Kruska

 

[CharlesBronson]

All that is very nice but, might I remember the catastrophical losses of the F-104 in accidents.

The Luftwaffe was the primary user of the Starfighter, operating over thirty-five percent of all F-104s built. Luftwaffe F-104Gs came from all five production lines of the Starfighter consortium. The West German Luftwaffe received a total of 915 Starfighters (30 F-104Fs, 96 F-104Gs, and 136 TF-104Gs from Lockheed, 255 F/RF-104Gs from the North Group, 210 F-104Gs from the South Group, 88 F-104Gs from the West Group, 50 F/RF-104Gs from the Italian Group, plus 50 replacement F-104Gs from MBB to replace some of those lost in crashes).

At their peak in the mid-1970s, Starfighters equipped five nuclear-armed Luftwaffe fighter-bomber wings, two interceptor wings, and two reconnaissance wings. In addition, two attack wings of the Marineflieger (Federal German Navy) were equipped with Starfighters

The first German Starfighters were the Lockheed-built two-seat F-104Fs which were initially used in the USA to train German instructors. At that time, the F-104Fs were painted with standard USAF insignia and carried USAF serial numbers. These machines were then handed over to Waffenschule 10, which was based at Norvenich in Germany. After handover, they were repainted in Luftwaffe insignia and assigned German serial numbers. They began converting pilots for JBG31 in July of 1960.

The first operational unit to be equipped with the F-104G was Jagdbombergeschwader 31 "Boelcke" (JBG31), also based at Norvenich. JBG31 became fully operational in 1963. Other Jagdbombergeschwadern (fighter-bomber wings) to receive the F-104G were JBG32 at Lechfeld, JBG33 at Buchel, JBG34 at Memmingen, and JBG36 at Rheine-Hopsten. Two fighter wings (Jagdgeschwadern) received the F-104G--JG71 at Wittmundhafen and JG74 at Neuburg. Two Aufklarungsgeschwadern (reconnaissance wings) received the F-104G-- AKG51 at Ingoldstadt/Manching and AKG52 at Leck. In addition, two Marininefliegergeschwasedern of the Bundesmarine (West German Navy) received F-104Gs. These were MFG1 at Schleswig and MFG2 at Eggebeck. They operated in the armed reconnaissance and anti-shipping strike roles.

With new aircraft being delivered almost daily to the new Luftwaffe, a massive pilot training was required in order to get them into service quickly. Northern European weather and operational restrictions placed severe limitations on the amount of training that could be done in Germany. The immediate answer was to set up a Luftwaffe training operation in the southwestern United States, where there was a lot of space, where the air was clear, and where the weather was good most of the time. Many Luftwaffe Starfighters remained in the United States and were stationed at Luke AFB in Arizona for pilot training. They were assigned to the 4512th, 4518th, and 4443rd Combat Crew Training Squadrons of the USAF. Although remaining Luftwaffe property, these aircraft carried USAF insignia and were assigned USAF serial numbers. Final F-104G training for the European environment was done at Waffenschule 10 at Jever.

In Luftwaffe service, the F-104G got a bad reputation because of the large number of accidents, many of them resulting in fatalities. Intensive flying operations with the Starfighter did not start in Germany until 1961, when only two crashes took place. There were seven crashes in 1962, 12 in 1964, and 28 in 1965, or more than two a month. By mid-1966, 61 German Starfighters had crashed, with a loss of 35 pilots. At the height of the crisis, the Starfighter accident rate peaked at 139 per 100,000 flying hours. As a result, the German press went into a feeding frenzy and the F-104G was given derogatory nicknames such as the "Flying Coffin" or the "Widowmaker", which brings to mind all of the flak that surrounded the Martin B-26 Marauder during World War 2. One running joke at the time was that if you waited long enough, just about every square mile of Germany would have a Starfighter crash onto it. The press left many people with the impression that there was something intrinsically wrong with the F-104G, that it was just too difficult an airplane to fly for the new and relatively inexperienced Luftwaffe pilots. The high loss rate generated a flurry of criticism of the Bonn government, some critics claiming that the entire Starfighter program had been politically-motivated and should be cancelled outright.

During its period of service with the German armed forces, about 270 German Starfighters were lost in accidents, just under 30 percent of the total force. About 110 pilots were killed. However, the attrition rate in German service was not all that much greater than that of the F-104 in service with several other air forces, including the United States Air Force. Canada had the unenviable record of losing over 50 percent of its 200 single-seat CF-104s in flying accidents. The loss rate of Luftwaffe Starfighters was not all that extraordinary, since the Luftwaffe had suffered a 36 percent attrition rate with the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak, the Starfighter's immediate predecessor. There was nothing intrinsically dangerous about the Starfighter, since the Royal Norwegian Air Force operating identical F-104Gs suffered only six losses in 56,000 flying hours, and the Spanish Air Force lost not a single one of its Starfighters to accidents.

Nevertheless, some of the Luftwaffe crashes could indeed be traced to technical problems with the F-104G itself. Engine problems, including difficulties with the J79's variable afterburner nozzle, and contamination of the Starfighter's liquid oxygen system causing loss of consciousness of the pilot were listed as contributing factors in some of the accidents. There were also problems with the automatic pitch-up limiter during high-speed low-altitude flying and in tight turns, resulting in its temporary removal, with accompanying restrictions on the maneuverability.

However, the high rate of crashes while in Luftwaffe service could be blamed more on the hazards of flying low-altitude missions at high speeds in the bad weather of Northern Europe than on any intrinsic flaw with the F-104G. Human error was probably the major cause of the majority of the accidents. The Starfighter required 38-45 hours of maintenance for every hour in the air, and many of the Luftwaffe ground crew personnel were conscripts who were probably too hastily trained. In addition, German Starfighter pilots were only flying 13-15 hours a month, compared with the NATO average of about 20 hours. Another factor may have been the fact that the initial training of Luftwaffe aircrews took place in the USA rather than in Germany. The reason given for training Luftwaffe pilots in the USA rather than in Germany was that the clear air and good flying weather in the American Southwest was much more conducive to pilot training than was the often lousy weather of Northern Europe. However, one might fairly point out that were war to break out, the actual fighting would be done in the nasty weather of Europe rather than in the clear desert air of the American West. The sudden transition from the clear desert skies of Arizona to the winter skies of northern Europe may have been another factor in the rash of crashes.

At the height of the Starfighter political crisis in mid-1966, the Luftwaffe chief, General Wernher Panitzki, was forced to resign after he had criticized the FRG's Starfighter procurement program as being politically-motivated. His successor was the World War 2 ace Lieutenant General Johannes Steinhoff, who had flown Me 262 jets during the war. Steinhoff had not initially been a Starfighter booster, and he had complained about the Bonn Defence Ministry's failure to implement the recommendations of his 1964 report on F-104G survival measures. One of Steinhoff's first moves was to review the F-104G's ejection system to enhance the probability of a successful escape by a pilot at low level. The Lockheed C-2 ejection seat initially fitted to the F-104G had been fitted with a more powerful Talley Corp 10100 rocket booster by November 1966 to give it true zero-zero capability. However, it was found that the Talley rockets had a destabilizing effect after ejection, and had to be removed. After the German Starfighter had to be grounded once again for fixes to the C-2 seats in December of 1966, it was decided to switch over to Martin-Baker Mk GQ7A zero-zero ejection seats. A contract was signed on March 8, 1967 to re-equip the entire German F-104G force with the Martin-Baker seats. This took about a year to get done. The first successful use of a GQ7 seat to escape from a German F-104G took place during a ground-level overshoot at Ramstein on September 24, 1968.

Another part of the program to reduce the Starfighter accident rate was the revision of the training techniques and procedures. It soon began to pay off. The Starfighter accident rate dropped by about half in 1968. However, this was only temporary, and between 15 and 20 Starfighters crashed very year between 1968 and 1972. Crashes continued at a rate of 9 to 11 aircraft per year until the early 1980s, when all German F-104Gs began to be replaced by Tornados.

Starfighter with Luftwaffe

 

[BombTaxi]

The Starfighter was a pretty machine, but for most aesthetically pleasing interceptor, I have to go with the EE Lightning. You might say of the Starfighter "If it didn't make it go fast, it didn't have it", but I say of the Lightning "If it didn't kill Soviet bombers, it didn't have it". The whole thing was just a very large and powerful system for flinging missiles at bombers. There is nothing in that design that serves any other purpose... 8)

 

[pbfoot]

The losses of the RCAF were due to the type of flying originally they were nuclear strike aircraft and flying lo level at 600 knots while navigating is a tough job, on a side note originally the LW had a very poor maintainence program and after changing to a better program their losses dropped dramatically

 

[CharlesBronson]

Eh...wasnt only german and canadian models. There were 19 fatalities of US test pilots during its development program, and that was the F-104A, a simple good weather interceptor, not the packed multi-role F-104G. ( multirole in Lockheed minds, it wasnt suited for the task)

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Pakistan took the F-104 into combat and I believe they lost 2, one non-combat. Spain operated the -104 and never lost one. NATO with the exception of Greece and Turkey had a loss rate of 1.81, if you factor in Greece and Turkey it rises to 2.14 - Now how about Japan? Their attrition rate average .068 through out their 20 operational history!!!

Compare these numbers with other aircraft. I think NATO operators of F-100s had over a 4% attrition rate.

 

[Sweb]

How do you distinguish a 104 crew chief from all others? He's the one with scars on his forehead. Truth or urban legend, the wing leading edges of the 104 were near knife-edged. The 104 was fast and that was it's prime design spec. Jacquelyn Cochran held the world's speed record for a while in the 104. It didn't have any range. Basically it was an engine with flying surfaces and cockpit attached and little else. One shot at the target and it was back down for refueling. Of that period I preferred the F-105D over all other designs. I think the Double-Ugly was the culmination of all the things that went right with the Century Series up through the F-106.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

How do you distinguish a 104 crew chief from all others? He's the one with scars on his forehead. Truth or urban legend, the wing leading edges of the 104 were near knife-edged. The 104 was fast and that was it's prime design spec. Jacquelyn Cochran held the world's speed record for a while in the 104. It didn't have any range. Basically it was an engine with flying surfaces and cockpit attached and little else. One shot at the target and it was back down for refueling.

I actually worked on civilian owned 104s and I found the leading edges weren't as sharp as advertised.

The aircraft's fall backs were a product of the design spec. Kelly Johnson gave the USAF what it wanted at the time.

 

[Butters]

During the mid-70's, you could stand within 50-70 ft of the runway at CFB Greenwood in Nova Scotia. Nothing could match the experience of watching a Zipper howling by right down on the deck and arcing into a zoom climb. The roar of that mighty J-79 would still be echoing in your ears as the 104 magically disappeared from sight in the clear blue sky. AWESOME!!

A very good book on the F-104 in Canadian service is, 'Starfighter', by CF-104 pilot Dave Brashow. Lots of great anecdotes, information, and pictures.

Definitely one of the most beautiful jet fighters ever.

JL

 

[Lucky13]

They don't get much better than the F-104 or F-8 in style! On the other hand, the F-102 and F-106 don't look halfbad either!

 

[Messy1]

The F-104 seems like the plane you would see in UFO movies from the 50's and 60's trying to intercept the UFO or shoot it down. I must have seen a movie or two with the F104 in it at some point growing up, because that is what it has always reminded me of.

 

[Sweb]

Eh...wasnt only german and canadian models. There were 19 fatalities of US test pilots during its development program, and that was the F-104A, a simple good weather interceptor, not the packed multi-role F-104G. ( multirole in Lockheed minds, it wasnt suited for the task)

Damned near criminal. That's a serial killer cloaked with wings.